Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(56)

“You live here even in the winter?” With the holes and cracks in the glass, it’d be brutal.

Ivy shrugged, though she shifted on the moss couch. “I don’t have many other options. And I like it here. This is more my home than any other place.”

Selina understood that feeling too well. Not that she’d ever really had a place that was solely hers, that felt like home. No, Maggie had been her home—if home could be a person.

A familiar, old pain started to swarm her, so Selina asked, “No alter ego with a nice apartment and a cushy job?”

Harley cut Selina a warning glare, pigtails swinging. “Why so many questions, kitty?”

Ivy only said to Selina, “No. What you see is what you get.” She added a tad softer, “And I have no one…no one who would need to be protected. By keeping my identity secret.”

Harley’s red-and-black-painted nails dug into the mossy couch arm, but she continued watching the TV.

Selina noted the reaction. Reined in the words that sought to come out of her. I know—what it is to have that weight. To need this helmet. To keep them safe.

She had no doubt that Harley wouldn’t appreciate it. Would see it as a threat toward whoever she protected with the fake name, the makeup, the costumes. Her mom, definitely. But who else?

Ivy asked her, “What’s your favorite food?”

Selina blinked. “I—don’t have one.”

She didn’t. Food had been so scarce that she hadn’t been given the luxury of finding a favorite one. But at the raised brows they both gave her, she amended, “Pizza. I guess.”

She asked, just because she didn’t know what else to say, “What’s yours?”

“Raspberries.”

“She’s vegan,” Harley said in a mock-whisper. “Don’t ever let her cook for you.”

Ivy nudged her with an elbow. “You said you liked those seitan tacos.”

“With the fake cheese and fake sour cream and fake meat? Mmm. Delicious.”

Selina chuckled. “I’m with Harley on that one.”

Ivy flipped them both off. Harley blew her a kiss.

Strange—to sit here in this exotic wonderland, with these women, and just…hang out.

Do nothing but talk and relax.

It sounded pathetic, probably was pathetic, but she’d never had friends. The Leopards hadn’t counted. They weren’t affectionate, their loyalty having more to do with survival and protocol than anything from genuine feeling.

And at the League, things like friendship hadn’t existed. Loyalty did—to Nyssa and Talia and the Cause. Fervent, bone-deep loyalty to the two women determined to bring this world to rights, no matter the cost.

They had taught her well.

And yet…It was nice, Selina decided as Harley and Ivy began bickering over the stupidity of the movie’s hero, to be around other young women, friends or whatever they were. Especially when they were so equally dedicated to not giving a shit.

Selina opened her mouth to explain how she’d escape the killer in the film—rather, how she’d hunt the creep down. But she didn’t have time to.

Something smashed through the ancient glass, rolling onto the soft, thick grass between them and the TV.

Selina had a heartbeat to realize what it was.

Grenade. Homemade. Lethal.

Harley shouted, but Ivy moved, so fast Selina barely had time to contemplate lunging for the bomb.

A flash of green, a snap—

A thick vine that Selina had mistaken for a root in the grass plucked up the grenade and hurled it back toward where it had come from.

It barely cleared the greenhouse before it exploded.

Selina threw herself over both of the women as glass shattered and rained down.

Then silence.

“Shit,” Harley panted beneath her. “Shit.”

They had to move. Had to get out now—

A heartbeat later, something heavy thudded into the grass.

The vine lunged again, but it froze.

Even from a few feet away, the message written around the brick was clear enough:

This was a warning. The next time, there will be more. You three bitches are done.

A warning. The grenade had been a warning.

Selina’s body, still sprawled over Harley and Ivy, didn’t seem to agree. Seemed to keep screaming, We need to run. We need to go on the offensive. We need to get outside.

She took a breath to calm herself. Another. It seemed the other women were doing the same.

“You hurt?” Selina asked them when her heart had steadied enough for her to stand and brush the glass off herself. None had pierced the suit, but the two of them…

Ivy was bleeding. Long scratches down her bare arms and legs. Where Selina’s body hadn’t reached.

But both of them were staring up at Selina. As if they’d never seen her before.

“You jumped in front of us,” Harley said.

“I’m in this suit” was Selina’s only answer. She pointed to Ivy. “We need to clean that up.”

Harley straightened, noting the blood on Ivy, the glass. Her already pale face went ashen.

Ivy gritted her teeth, hissing at the leaking wounds. “There—there’s some salve and bandages in the cabinet next to the sink,” she said. “It’ll help. I—made them.”